Premonitions
by Delenn
Summary: NEW: 04-04-05 A prophecy at a god’s birth leads towards premonitions of the future. “Only one sentence rang clear, ‘A love that will destroy us all.’”


**Disclaimer: The characters you recognize from 'Xena: Warrior Princess' and/or 'Hercules: the Legendary Journeys' don't belong to me, they belong to whoever owns/wrote/created them. No copyright infringement intended, okay? I'm just borrowing them! The story belongs to me. **

Author's Note: Well, jeeze, lookie at all the people. looks up innocently at the readers Here's the deal with this story; it's rather random, potentially cannon, pre-X:WP, post-most Greek myths. Obviously, as with all my X:WP stories, there's a hint of romance, this time tied in with prophecy. Okay, finish the boring disclaimers and stuff and READ!

Dedications: Still the same people it's always been dedicated to. Especially to Illy, LK, Tali, Tango, Rissy, Kat, and everyone who I still see online, as that's not many anymore.

Summary: A prophecy at a god's birth leads towards premonitions of the future. "Only one sentence rang clear, 'A love that will destroy us all.'"

Warnings: Slightly angsty/reflective/foreshadowing?

Rated: PG

Date Started/Finished: April 3rd, 2005/April 4th, 2005

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Premonitions  
By Delenn

The stars must be moved for a god to be born, the face of the future twisting and curing until a new shape is formed.

On such a momentous occasion, all the forces of the universe gather to bless and gift the powerful new being with realms and powers. All warnings, all omens, all prophecies are taken very seriously, as the newborn god is still in harmony with the greatest forces from which all draw their powers.

The fates, who have existed in some incarnation since before Gaea herself, offer one piece of advice to steer the babe away from the darker, tangled parts of their looms.

Waiting the prophecy, Hera stood with the babe in her arms, smoothcut stone, looking out of place in the much visited role of motherhood. Would always be out of place in a role that occupied so little of her time.

Nearby, anxious, stood Zeus, who remembered in this moment only his own ill-fated warning. A tradition of the king to fear the son, the one who would be strong enough to take his place if let close enough.

Gently, all three fates looked upon the babe, then at each other, before speaking their prediction. In riddles of the three they spoke, laying out the future in impossible fragments. Only one sentence rang clear, "A love that will destroy us all."

Though the god-ling himself would never know more than fragments of the prophecy, nobody else present would ever forget. The stars had been shifted to introduce a great fear encased in so vague a message. Extinction to be avoided at all costs.

The Fates went back to their looms. Leaving the gods to stare apprehensively at the new ruler of war.

And so it began.

The god of war did not train women. It was a rule so old that nobody remembered its intent, only its existence.

Clearing the path of any possible exceptions, his sisters, Athena and Artemis, were given pieces of war to take as their own. Let Ares have his blood and warriors and battles. Artemis would train her Amazons, Athena the women left over, for wise warfare was seen as a woman's approach.

For his part, Ares didn't mind, not for millenniums. Innocent only of an ancient warning, he didn't mind Hera's silence, Zeus's fear turned to hatred.

And then, the Fates watching anxiously among their looms, a comet flew into the sky and threw the stars and prophecies into deadly alignment. A young girl being forged into the very weapon the Fates had warned about, as anxious gods played right towards the goal they so feared.

An unknown twinge felt in a long forgotten heart.

The Fates shook their heads, silently speaking to one another.

And so it began.

"You called, sisters?" The smirk was sarcastic at best, menacing at worst.

Both women ignored him, late as he was, favoring each other with unconcerned stares that only sisters can manage properly. It was the wilder of the two that spoke first, seemingly lost without her twin by her side, like half an equation, unsolvable without the whole. "We need your opinion, Ares, on a warrior, a woman."

"True, Artemis seems to be having a problem understanding our jobs, and we thought who better to discuss a savage with than our dear brother?" For Athena, this was being nice. Favored despite her ill-gotten birth, Athena lived up to her titles well, wise beyond her years and rightfully wary of her volatile sibling.

Fidgeting slightly in the golden, airy palace, Ares prepared himself for another family spat. It seemed there was always some dispute to be occupied with, of one cared. He didn't. "A warrior? Is she an Amazon?"

Through tight lips, Artemis admitted, "No," and Athena smirked in that superior way that made all her siblings increasingly irritable towards her.

Rolling his eyes, Ares wondered why they'd bothered him with something so trivial. "Then Athena will take her. Doesn't anybody read the handbook?"

Again, both women ignored his sarcastic comment. Too used to their brother's attitude to let it interrupt a brewing argument. It was Artemis who jumped up in an uncharacteristic display of passion, "Athena won't take her! To let such a warrior go to waste! If she were an Amazon…"

"Such a warrior, such a warrior! Artemis, she has no wisdom! All she dreams is vengeance, bloodlust, hate, how are those the ways of wise warfare? Better she gets herself killed." Athena stayed stoic, though her eyes flashed fire.

Taking a deep breath, Ares demanded, "Who's this little girl that's got you both in such a fit?"

Athena laughed, "By all means, brother, do see for yourself… I imagine you'll find her… quite like yourself."

Barely taking time to catch the name, Ares disappeared, glad to be out of the presence of his sisters. It was when they were acting the nicest that he felt the least comfortable, unsure of how to deal with them.

The fight wasn't extraordinary; the enemy a little under standard for a warlord, but the girl… the girl was something else. Her eyes screamed out in hatred, cutting through anything they came across. Her style was lacking, but the intensity, the drive to bend the world to her will, and cut down anything in the way…

It was beautiful to watch. She was beautiful, fiery and angry, unrelenting and calling out to none.

When she turned, shaking a little in the harsh rain, and the ice of her stare settled on him, just as he appeared out of the aether, Ares knew that his sisters had been wrong.

She would not go to waste, not be destroyed. Even if the gods forsook her, she had an energy of spirit about her, a will that would struggle on.

To someone who was made for, made of war, it was obvious by the way she threw spirit into the fight, even when the win wasn't guaranteed.

Ares stayed there, cloaked in the aether, watching silently, until the battle was over and the rain died down. Until she had looked his way so many times that she had come to investigate, put the tingle to rest, and brushed so close that he'd felt the phantom caress of her dark hair against his incorporeal body.

When he finally disappeared, back to Olympus and his warring sisters, old warnings were forgotten. He appeared with the announcement, "I'll train her," and left just as quickly, forgetting that the god of war didn't train women. Missing the looks of astonishment and fear on the faces of the two goddesses.

For a moment, in the aether, before he appeared to her for the first time, a twinge of warning sounded, a veiled memory of the past and a partial premonition of the future. Begging him to turn around and choose the other path.

He stopped. Unsure of such powerful feelings, but in the end, let himself be pulled by this shiningly rough presence among masses, millenniums of the bored multitudes. Perhaps not seeing or not caring of the forces that were building around him, inside him. A dance of future pain and passion upon his lips, spoken for the first time, a prelude to the future, "Xena…"

With a deep look shared, the Fates took the two threads and began twining them together, watching as entire mountains of the tapestry moved about them, mindful of the great tangles ahead in the path.

And so it began.


End file.
